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Traditionally philosophical discussions on moral responsibility have focused on the human components in moral action. Accounts of how to ascribe moral responsibility usually describe human agents performing actions that have well-defined, direct consequences. In today's increasingly technological society, however, human activity cannot be properly understood without making reference to technological artifacts, which complicates the ascription of moral responsibility (Jonas 1984; Waelbers 2009).http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computing-responsibility/notes.html#1 1 As we interact with and through these artifacts, they affect the decisions that we make and how we make them (Latour 1992). They persuade, facilitate and enable particular human cognitive processes, actions or attitudes, while constraining, discouraging and inhibiting others. For instance, internet search engines prioritize and present information in a particular order, thereby influencing what Internet users get to see. As Verbeek points out, such technological artifacts are “active mediators” that “actively co-shape people's being in the world: their perception and actions, experience and existence” (2006, p. 364). As active mediators, they change the character of human action and as a result it challenges conventional notions about how to distribute moral responsibility (Jonas 1984; Johnson 2001). Computing presents a particular case for understanding the role of technology in moral responsibility. As these technologies become a more integral part of daily activities, automate more decision-making processes and continue to transform the way people communicate and relate to each other, they further complicate the already problematic tasks of attributing moral responsibility. The growing pervasiveness of computer technologies in everyday life, the growing complexities of these technologies and the new possibilities that they provide raise new kinds of questions: who is responsible for the information published on the Internet? Who is accountable when electronic records are lost or when they contain errors? To what extent and for what period of time are developers of computer technologies accountable for untoward consequences of their products? And as computer technologies become more complex and behave increasingly autonomous can or should humans still be held responsible for the behavior of these technologies? This entry will first look at the challenges that computing poses to conventional notions of moral responsibility. The discussion will then review two different ways in which various authors have addressed these challenges: 1) by reconsidering the idea of moral agency and 2) by rethinking the concept of moral responsibility itself. *1. Challenges to moral responsibility **1.1 Causal contribution **1.2 Considering the consequences **1.3 Free to act *2. Can computers be moral agents? **2.1 Computers as morally responsible agents **2.2 Creating autonomous moral agents **2.3 Expanding the concept of moral agency *3. Rethinking the concept of moral responsibility *Bibliography *Academic Tools *Other Internet Resources **Journals On-line **Centers **Organizations **Blogs *Related Entries ---- 1. Challenges to moral responsibility Moral responsibility is about human action and its consequences. Generally speaking a person or a group of people is morally responsible when their voluntary actions have morally significant outcomes that would make it appropriate to blame or praise them. Thus, we may consider it a person's moral responsibility to jump in the water and try to rescue another person, when she sees that person drowning. If she manages to pull the person from the water we are likely to praise her, whereas if she refuses to help we may blame her. Ascribing morally responsibility establishes a link between a person or a group of people (the subject) and someone or something (the object) that is affected by the actions of the subject. This can be done both retrospectively as well as prospectively. That is, sometimes ascriptions of responsibility involve giving an account of who was at fault for an accident and who should be punished. It can also be about prospectively determining the obligations and duties a person has to fulfill in the future and what she ought to do. However, it is not always clear when the ascription of moral responsibility is appropriate. On the one hand the concept has varying meanings and debates continue on what sets moral responsibility apart from other kinds of responsibility (Hart 1968). The concept is intertwined and sometimes overlaps with notions of accountability, liability, blameworthiness, role-responsibility and causality. Opinions also differ on which conditions warrant the attribution of moral responsibility; whether it requires an agent with free will or not and whether humans are the only entities to which moral responsibility can be attributed (see the entry on moral responsibility). On the other hand, it can be difficult to establish a direct link between the subject and an object because of the complexity involved in human activity, in particular in today's technological society. Individuals and institutions generally act with and in sociotechnical systems in which tasks are distributed among human and technological components, which mutually affect each other in contingent ways. Increasingly complex technologies can exacerbate the difficulty of identifying who or what is ‘responsible’. When something goes wrong, a retrospective account of what happened is expected and the more complex the system, the more challenging is the task of ascribing responsibility (Johnson and Powers 2005). The increasing pervasiveness of computer technologies poses various challenges to figuring out what moral responsibility entails and how it should be properly ascribed. To explain how computing complicates the ascription of responsibility we have to consider the conditions under which it makes sense to hold someone responsible. Despite the ongoing philosophical debates on the issue, most analysis of moral responsibility share at least the following three conditions (Eshelman 2009; Jonas 1984): #There should be a causal connection between the person and the outcome of actions. A person is usually only held responsible if she had some control over the outcome of events. #The subject has to have knowledge of and be able to consider the possible consequences of her actions. We tend to excuse someone from blame if they could not have known that their actions would lead to a harmful event. #The subject has to be able to freely choose to act in certain way. That is, it does not make sense to hold someone responsible for a harmful event if her actions were completely determined by outside forces. A closer look at these three conditions shows that computing can complicate the applicability of each of these conditions. 1.1 Causal contribution In order for a person to be held morally responsible for a particular event, she has to be able to exert some kind of influence on that event. It does not make sense to blame someone for an accident if she could not have avoided it by acting differently or if she had no control over the events leading up to the accident. However, computer technologies can obscure the causal connections between a person's actions and the eventual consequences. Tracing the sequence of events that led to a computer-related incident usually leads in many directions, as such incidents are seldom the result of a single error or mishap. Technological accidents are commonly the product of an accumulation of mistakes, misunderstanding or negligent behavior of various individuals involved in the development, use and maintenance of computer systems, including designers, engineers, technicians, regulators, managers, users, manufacturers, sellers, resellers and even policy makers. The contribution of multiple actors in the development and deployment of technologies is known as the problem of ‘many hands’ (Friedman 1990; Nissenbaum 1994; Jonas 1984). One much-discussed example of the problem of many hands in computing is the case of the malfunctioning radiation treatment machine Therac-25 (Leveson and Turner 1993; Leveson 1995). This computer-controlled machine was designed for the radiation treatment of cancer patients as well as for X-rays. During a two-year period in the 1980's the machine massively overdosed six patients, contributing to the eventual death of three of them. These incidents were the result of the combination of a number of factors, including software errors, inadequate testing and quality assurance, exaggerated claims about the reliability, bad interface design, overconfidence in software design, and inadequate investigation or follow-up on accident reports. Nevertheless, in their analysis of the events Leveson and Turner conclude that it is hard to place the blame on a single person. The actions or negligence of all those involved might not have proven fatal were it not for the other contributing events. This is not to say that there is no moral responsibility in this case (Nissenbaum 1994; Gotterbarn 2001), as many actors could have acted differently, but it makes it difficult to retrospectively identify the appropriate person that can be called upon to answer and make amends for the outcome. Adding to the problem of many hands is the temporal and physical distance that computing creates between a person and the consequences of her actions, as this distance can blur the causal connection between actions and events (Friedman 1990). Computational technologies extend the reach of human activity through time and space. With the help of social media and communication technologies people can interact with others on the other side of the world. Satellites and advanced communication technologies allow pilots to fly a remote-controlled drone over Afghanistan from their ground-control station in the United States. These technologies enable people to act over greater distances, but this remoteness can dissociate the original actions from its eventual consequences (Waelbers 2009). When a person uses a technological artifact to perform an action thousands of miles a way, that person might not know the people that will be affected and she might not directly, or only partially, experience the consequences. This can reduce the sense of responsibility the person feels and it may interfere with her ability to fully comprehend the significance of her actions. Similarly, the designers of an automated decision-making system determine ahead of time how decisions should be made, but they will rarely see how these decisions will impact the individuals they affect. Their original actions in programming the system may have effects on people years later. The problem of many hands and the distancing effects of the use of technology illustrate the mediating role of technological artifacts in the confusion about moral responsibility. Technological artifacts bring together the various different intentions of their creators and users. People create and deploy technologies with the objective of producing some effect in the world. Software developers develop an Internet filter, often at the request of a manager or a client, with the aim of shielding particular content from its users and influencing what these users can or cannot read. The software has inscribed in its design the various intentions of the developers, managers and clients; it is poised to behave, given a particular input, according to their ideas about which information is appropriate (Friedman 1997). Moral responsibility can therefore not be attributed without looking at the causal efficacy of these artifacts and how they constrain and enable particular human activities. However, technological artifacts do not determine human action. They are not isolated instruments that mean and work the same regardless of why, by whom, and in what context they are used; they have interpretive flexibility (Bijker et al. 1987).http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computing-responsibility/notes.html#2 2 Although the design of the technology provides a set of conditions for action, the form and meaning of these actions is the result of how human agents choose to use these technologies in particular contexts. People often use technologies in ways unforeseen by their designers. This interpretive flexibility makes it difficult for designers to anticipate all the possible outcomes of the use of their technologies. The mediating role of computer technologies complicates the effort of retrospectively tracing back the causal connection between actions and outcomes, but it also complicates forward-looking responsibility.